5 hits and 5 misses from the campaign trail, Sep. 15-20

Not right but correct? Midweek, immediately post-video, Mean Mitt Etch-a-Sketched into Moderate Mitt once again – the second time in two weeks the candidate’s lurched from Ryan to RINO in an effort to change the conversation. Romney said in a speech Wednesday, “This is a campaign about the 100 percent.” He followed that with “The President says I’m the grandfather of Obamacare. I don’t think he meant that as a compliment, but I’ll take it.” And on gay marriage: “I would like to have the term ‘marriage’ continue to be associated with a relationship between one man and one woman, and that certainly doesn’t prevent two people of the same gender living in a loving relationship together having gay domestic partnership, if you will.” You can call it another flip-flop. You can call it desperate. You can even call it too little too late. But if Romney had adopted this tone consistently through the campaign, we’d be looking at different numbers now.

Pressing the advantage. The Obama campaign wasted no time rolling out new advertising assailing Romney on the fund-raising video contents. One of the most effective features a senior saying, “I’m not a victim. I’m sorry he sees me as a victim. He would be a tragic president.”

Redistribution of poll numbers? The Romney campaign reached back into the audio vaults, pulling out an Obama speech from 1998 – yes, 1998, a decade before he ran for president – in which the then-state senator advocated finding a plan to “structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution, because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level, to make sure that everybody’s got a shot.” Ryan and other surrogates quickly picked up the tactic. It’s too early to tell how effective it will be as a campaign theme.

Ryan, road warrior. As Romney’s personal campaign activity has been weirdly stuck in neutral (see below), Paul Ryan has done his best to provide the motive force. He clearly relishes the retail politics part of the VP bargain he has made, and he’s good at it. He’s made many more daily campaign stops than Romney, and he’s carried the campaign’s fiercest attack lines, with gusto. This is what being a young, energetic VP candidate is all about, and despite some fast-and-loose-with-the-facts tarnishing his image early, he’s been effective.

Ann stands by her man. Speaking in Iowa, Ann Romney had blunt words for GOP critics of her husband (see below): “Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring,” she said. While those remarks will stop nothing, it was a good PR moment for the campaign as Ann reminded Republicans “how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how.” After the groundswell of favorable reaction to her Republican Convention speech, she clearly has some currency with the party and with voters, and she chose this moment to spend some of it.

5 misses:

Just one video, so many gaffes. The most shocking thing about the fund-raising video wasn’t the 47 percent line, or the “I wish George’s parents were Mexican” nonsense, or even the Palestinian blunder. It was that Romney was naïve enough to think that he could express not-for-public-consumption views at any gathering. It’s the same “bitter” lesson Obama learned in 2008. You’d think that would be hammered into any candidate’s brain by now. “They love the phrase that ‘he’s over his head,’ Romney said on the video of Americans’ reaction to his preferred portrayal of the President. But the debacle left the impression that it’s the challenger, not the incumbent, who’s overwhelmed by the difficulties of campaigning, much less governing.

Don’t strain yourself, there’s no real urgency here: On Thursday, a Romney campaign adviser let it be known that the GOP nominee was planning to campaign more aggressively in critical states like Colorado and Ohio starting next week – even planning as many as three campaign events a day. Whoa, that’s radical. Three whole events a day? What makes this news is that it is at variance with what he has been doing so far, which has been unbelievably leisurely, not to say somnolent. Okay, we’ll say it, somnolent. The Romney campaign also has been much more tentative than the Obama partisans on booking TV time. What are they saving the money for, Christmas? When the Internet is blowing up with a list of controversial things you’ve said behind closed doors, it might be time to come out and swing back a little. Particularly when running from behind makes fund-raising all the more difficult.

Wait a minute, we thought you were the change: “I think I’ve learned some lessons over the past four years and the most important lesson I’ve learned is that you can’t change Washington from the inside.” President Obama made this statement in an interview on Univision. It was a big, fat pitch and the Romney camp wasted no time in bashing it into the seats. It was an unfortunate choice of words , only partially mitigated by the Democrats’ quick rejoinder that Mitt Romney said precisely the same thing in 2007. The difference: Mitt wasn’t president when he said it. Unforced error by Obama.

And these are the folks on his team: Susana Martinez, the popular, charismatic governor of New Mexico who was such a hit at the Republican convention, ran as fast as she could from the Romney 47 percent comment. So did other big-name Republicans throughout the week. Linda McMahon, locked in a tight battle for an open Senate seat in Connecticut, was perhaps the first to flee, posting a statement on her Facebook page: “I disagree with Governor Romney’s insinuation that 47% of Americans believe they are victims who must depend on the government.” Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada self-protectively piled on: “I have a different view of the world.” Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan then delivered perhaps the most devastating perspective from Mitt’s own party: “This is not how big leaders talk, it’s how shallow campaign operatives talk,” she wrote, adding “An intervention is in order.” Even Tim Pawlenty quit as co-chairman of the national Romney campaign for more honest work: lobbying for banks and hedge funds. So long, Captain, and good luck with that going-down-with-the-ship thing.

Bonus babies? It was a wildly inopportune moment for the news from the latest campaign spending cycle to include the fact that the Romney campaign handed out $200,000 in bonuses to senior staff immediately after the convention. The explanation was that the bonuses were for winning primaries, but it certainly had a surreal aspect, coming as it did at the end of the worst two-week stretch for a presidential campaign in memory. Not exactly calculated to encourage donors.